


And all I ask (is a tall ship and a star to steer her by)

by merle_p



Category: Firefly
Genre: Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 18:38:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merle_p/pseuds/merle_p
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If that doesn't help, she goes to see Wash.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And all I ask (is a tall ship and a star to steer her by)

**Author's Note:**

> Written December 2008.  
> Major spoiler for the end of the movie _Serenity_.  
> _Firefly_ and _Serenity_ belong to Joss Whedon; the titles are lines from John Masefield's poem [Sea-Fever](http://theotherpages.org/poems/masef01.html).   
> Translation for the Chinese phrases see endnotes.  
> This fic was written for [](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/profile)[**inlovewithnight**](http://inlovewithnight.livejournal.com/)'s catchallthon. It's for [](http://rosyshimmer.livejournal.com/profile)[**rosyshimmer**](http://rosyshimmer.livejournal.com/), whose prompt was: _Firefly - Kaylee + Wash friend fic. Exploration of their friendship based around a mutual love of Serenity._

_I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life_

*

There are people who wear their clothes like a business card. It certainly doesn't tell others _everything_ about them, but it often enough tells them everything they need to know. It's why Mal and Zoë, always in their Browncoat uniforms, can't walk into an Alliance-friendly bar without causing trouble. It's why Simon, always tidy and pretty, gets messed with so often on rim planets, because people there just _itch_ to ruffle his proper exterior. It's why Inara usually isn't treated like a whore, but never just like a beautiful woman, either.

Kaylee knows that she doesn't exactly dress like one would expect a mechanic to. She doesn't dress like a lady, either, but that's not the point. The point is that people look at her and don't see someone who knows her way around a ship. They see a little girl, in pigtails and flowery blouses, and they always underestimate her.

It's not a conscious decision on her part – it is what she is, this other side of hers, and she has learned to accept it, even if there are days when she looks at Inara, at Zoë, and wishes she wasn't. A leopard can't change its spots, though, and sometimes the effect she has on people offers an unexpected advantage. But it's not a ruse, and never was.

Sometimes she wonders if it's the same for Wash. He's still wearing aloha shirts years after he came on board, even if he has shaved off the mustache long ago. He's still playing with children's toys, even if Jayne has mocked him mercilessly about it more than once. He's still, from time to time, leering at Zoë like a teenage boy at a skin mag, even if they are married and he can have her any time he wants.

And at the same time, he's the one who can escape Alliance ships much bigger than Serenity without even breaking a sweat. He's the one who can fly them through Reavers' territory and bring all of them home in one piece. He's the one who's never afraid to butt heads with Mal if he thinks that the captain is wrong. He looks like a salesman on vacation and is still the best and most fearless pilot she's ever met. And sometimes Kaylee wonders if he knows what people think when they look at him – or if he even cares.

*

The first time she meets him, he's wearing a short-sleeved shirt with light blue flowers and an impressive reddish-blond mustache. He's fiddling around with the control buttons, humming under his breath, all the while having a one-sided conversation with the plastic toys that populate the console.

"What are those?" she asks, picking up one of the little animals, poking at the spikes on its back.

"Dinosaurs", Wash says, taking his hands off the console and turning around to look at her. "They lived on Earth-that-was. Long time ago, before humans even existed."

"Oh", she breathes reverently, carefully putting down the toy and reaching for another. "How do we even know how they looked like, then?"

Wash beams, like he's real pleased that she asked. "They found petrifactions. Molds of their bones in stone."

"Oh", Kaylee makes again, although she doesn't really get it – she doesn't even know what a _petrifaction_ is; and she's seen a dead guy's blank bones more than once, and she certainly couldn't guess what he looked like when he still was alive.

"It's no wonder they died off seeing as how they were this tiny" she says, balancing the animal on the flat palm of her hand.

"No, no", Wash shakes his head excitedly, raising his arms and spreading them wide, as if he's trying to fly. "They were big. Real big. Real dangerous, too."

"How big?" she asks curiously. "Like – like a house, big?"

Wash grins at her, broadly. "Bigger", he says, stretching his arms even wider. "Like – like Serenity, big."

"_Wah_", she says and smiles back. And she knows that she's going to like this man for whom Serenity is – literally – the measure of all things.

***

_And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking_

*

He'd bed her, he assures her when she stands forlornly in the brothel's entry hall, watching Simon hurry off to deliver a child. He'd bed her if he wasn't already married, to what is very possibly the scariest woman in the universe.

He's always been nice to her – never the kind of deliberately mean Jayne and the captain can be, never the kind of involuntarily insulting Simon acts at times, and she appreciates it, she does. But truth is – even if he wasn't married to Zoë, Kaylee is pretty sure that he wouldn't court her, and to be honest, she probably wouldn't want him to.

Wash loves the adventure, the challenge, the risk; he loves feeling his ship's power, his partner's strength under his hands, guiding them carefully without ordering, knowing they could hurt him easily, knowing they never will. That's why he's such a good pilot. That's why a warrior like Zoë turns soft and pliant under his touch.

Kaylee is anything but risky. She's neither dangerous nor strong, nor anything else Wash would look for in a woman – if he was looking at all. She's not one for games, not one for teasing, just a girl who likes pretty things and doesn't hesitate to say so. Frilly dresses. The shiny parts of a brand new engine. Simon Tam.   
And Wash might be a handsome fella, but pretty – pretty he's not.

Of course, Simon, in his own way, is a real challenge too. He's not Zoë's kind of dangerous, but one that can just as easily burn your fingers, break your heart. Kaylee has learned that the hard way, and still, she can't seem to let it go.

And in that regard, Wash and Kaylee are alike. They are both peaceful creatures, who wouldn't want to hurt a soul, but they still are drawn to the fire like moths to the light. It's what Wash draws to Zoë, what Kaylee draws to Simon.

It's why they both follow the captain.

It's why they love Serenity, too.

*

The battleship is catching up, and there's not much time left to escape. Johnny Eight-Toes Cho is not Niska, but he's still a gorram _hùnzhàng_, and he won't hesitate to blow up their firefly if he comes close enough to open fire.

"Kaylee", Wash yells over the com, "I need more power! _Máshàng_!"

She works frantically, pushing an errant strand of hair back with grease covered fingers. "If you want the turbine blades to melt?!" she shouts back. Serenity has her limits, and he knows that as damn well as she does.

"Girl!" That's Mal's voice now, urgent: "If you can't -"

"Not now, Mal", Wash interrupts, and Kaylee has to smile at how quickly the captain shuts up.

"Got an idea", she answers, already kneeling down to get to the compressor. If only she could manage to reinforce the cooling drive ... "Might help you with what you're planning to do. Just about for five minutes, though, if we don't want the combustion chamber to explode."

"My heroine", Wash says, and she can hear him grinning over the com. "Five minutes will be more than enough."

"Yeah", she agrees, knowing what he's thinking clear as day. "Should take us straight out of here", she says. "Should leave them in our exhaust, too." She plugs the last wire in, then straightens.

"Okey-dokey", she nods. "Let's do this. On three – two – one …."

She manages to grab hold of the small iron ladder a split second before Serenity lurches. Her screwdrivers are all over the room. She holds on for dear life and can't stop the laughter that bubbles out of her. These are the moments she lives for, the moments she loves the most – when they are allowed to show what they can do, to do what they do best, when it's just the three of them, saving the day – Kaylee and Wash and Serenity – and she knows that up there on the bridge, Wash is feeling the same.

***

_And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover_

*

Sometimes, Kaylee wonders how she managed to end up on a ship full of people who just don't know how to have _fun_.

It's not as if Zoë and Mal and Jayne don't joke and laugh, but it's the laughter of those who have seen too much, who have killed too often, always wild and desperate underneath the joy - just like in River's childlike giggling always resonates the pain she's suffered, the madness that sometimes grips her mind.

Simon, well Simon is lovely when he laughs, but it happens rarely – he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders, baggage that isn't even his to bear, that nobody wants him to shoulder, and more than once Kaylee wanted to shake him and yell at him to stop what's not doing anyone any good.

And as much as she likes Inara, it's hard to be around someone who's always in control, never lets go – she doesn't think she's ever seen Inara express her joy in something other than a graceful smile, slow movement of carefully painted lips.

It's not as if Kaylee hasn't had her share of bad things happen to her, it's not as if she hasn't seen death and pain; but she still is a firm believer in the saying that laughter is the best medicine (and sex maybe, or both at the same time) – and if that makes her tacky, or even naïve, well then she just doesn't care. It's how it was back at home, when she still lived at her father's house – someone was always laughing or singing, no matter how hard the times, how empty the cupboards. Serenity's crew is her family now, but there are times when she misses her people so much it feels like there's a heap of stones in her belly.

She hides in the engine room, whenever she feels homesick like that, just yelling at the top of her lungs. If that doesn't help, she goes to see Wash.

Wash knows better jokes then anyone else she's met, sometimes silly and sometimes naughty, and he knows how to tell them just right. He can be pretty subtle about it, too – is able to tease Jayne mercilessly for hours, without having to fear retaliation, because Jayne never even realizes that Wash is mocking him.

Wash knows the best stories, too – long and detailed tales of past travels, of planets he's seen, people he's met. One day she realized that for all he talks, he never tells much about himself – she doesn't know where he's from, if his parents are alive, if there was a woman he loved before Zoë. She reckons Zöe knows, though, and Kaylee doesn't mind telling him about herself, and for some reason, that makes it alright.

On Serenity, people aren't judged for their past – even if they all carry it around with themselves all the time.

*

She doesn't even know what got them started – one moment, Wash was telling her about the time he went to the bazaar on Persephone to buy a birthday present for Zoë – the next, they are rolling on the floor of the common room, they are laughing so hard. The moonshine Kaylee had traded in a few planets back is probably helping too.

"Captain", Zoë says calmly when she walks in, only a raised brow betraying her amusement. "I think we might need to hire a babysitter on the next planet. Seems to me we've acquired a couple of kids somehow."

"Reckon you're right", Mal nods, trying to keep a straight face. "Think we need to have the doc check them out?"

"Let the children come to me", River says gravely, wandering in after them. "And do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." She plants herself on the dining table, swinging her legs.

Mal gives her an exasperated look. "Damn, child, you been stealing Book's bible again?"

It's not even funny, but it's enough to set them off again.

***

_And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over_

*

The first weeks after Miranda, Serenity seems to be different. Quieter. Still. Of course, she got hurt – they all did – and is still healing, but Kaylee knows it's not that. Serenity is grieving, and nothing Kaylee could do would make her 'right.

She should be content – she's alive, and Simon likes her; River is better, and Serenity still flying, and that's more than she could have hoped for. And still, there's something missing, leaving her with this awful feeling of loss, and she can't even imagine what it must be like for Zoë. What it must be like for Serenity.

Sometimes, the captain calls Kaylee the ship's doctor, and Kaylee usually laughs and blushes, knowing he's talking _fèihuà_ – she'd never be smart enough to be a doctor. A nanny, more likely – that's what she'd say if forced at gunpoint to reveal how she sees herself: Someone who sings the child to sleep and makes chicken soup if it's not feeling well.

Mal – Mal is Serenity's master, or would be, if Serenity was his horse. He is the one she listens to, the one she obeys – she'd never let him down as long as there is one working part left in her.

And Serenity needs both of them, but. But Wash, he was Serenity's playmate, her friend – the one she had fun with, the one who challenged her for races. Of all the people on board of Serenity, he was the one she truly _liked_.

*

One sleepless night, she climbs up the stairs to the control room. Runs her fingers over the consoles, stares out into the black. It's quiet up here – River is there, crouching in the pilot's chair, but she's ignoring her, and Kaylee is grateful for it.

After a while, she hears feet on the stairs, and a strong arm comes around her waist from behind, pulling her back against Simon's broad chest.

"You miss him", he says quietly, pressing a little kiss against her hair. "I miss him too."

Kaylee nods, and lets herself fall back into the embrace.

She doesn't tell Simon that he cannot really understand.

**Author's Note:**

> **Chinese-English translations:**
> 
> Fèihuà – Nonsense  
> Wah! – Wow!  
> Hùnzhàng – Son of a bitch  
> Máshàng – Right now


End file.
